We Lost
by Lyza K
Summary: Sobbing, Hazel runs through the crumbling tunnels, runs away from the horrible room with its horrible blood-stained ground and it's horrible, horrible face-in-the-wall. Gaea is awake because of her. Gaea is awake, and they are dead, dead, dead, because of her. Written for Lazel Ship Week. Oneshot. T for character deaths.


**So here's my contribution to Lazel ship week. I'm sorry it's so...upsetting. It takes place at the end of House of Hades.**

**Warning: character deaths**

**I own nothing**

* * *

_Oh gods_.

Hazel ran through the crumbling tunnels. A falling piece of the ceiling nearly crushed her, but she barely noticed. Everything was shaking.

_Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods._

Why was her vision so blurry and her face so wet? She wiped at her face desperately but it didn't do much good.

All she could think of was what had just happened, and what she was running from.

* * *

For a few seconds, all he could register was that Piper was dead.

Her multi-colored eyes stared glassily at the rock ceiling as the blood poured from the wound in her chest, pooling around her and staining her clothes a sickening shade of red. One of Gaea's root-tendrils was still wrapped around her ankle, and another was sinking back into the ground, its sharp tip coated with gore.

_Piper was dead_.

He remembered how he'd teased her about having a crush on Jason, way back when they were still at Wilderness Academy.

_Piper was dead._

She had been so helpful while building the _Argo II_, making sure everyone in camp was assigned a duty, and making sure they did their job.

_Piper was dead._

She had been one of the kindest and bravest people he had ever known. She had been like his older sister. And now she was gone.

Leo felt tears streaming down his face.

"_Piper!_" Hazel's strangled cry brought him back to earth

He yanked at his feet, but the tendrils that were wrapped around his ankles were too thick to snap. He grabbed a screwdriver out of his tool-belt and stabbed them, but it was no good. The bark on the roots regrew instantly

Gaea's face was carved in the stone wall; eyes closed. She smiled. "_You try to escape, hero. How amusing._"

He could see Hazel on the other side of Piper's body. Her eyes were full of grief and terror. A root was wrapped around her waist.

Piper's blood was disappearing, soaking into the ground like water into a sponge. _Go figure_, Leo thought dimly.

Gaea laughed. "_The first sacrifice is complete._"

* * *

There was light ahead of her. Was she out already? The trip down had seemed to take hours.

Maybe, she thought, it was because the walk to the chamber with the face-in-the-wall had been like a walk to the executioners block. Then, her stomach had been heavy with dread and each step she took made her feel like she was walking through mud.

Now it was not dread she felt; she dreaded nothing now.

She gave a hysterical little laugh. What was there to worry about when the worst had already occurred?

* * *

Leo had to think of something. The roots were beginning to climb to his knees. All Gaea needed was one more sacrifice, _him_, and she would wake up.

There was no way he was going to let Gaea wake up.

He frantically dug through his tool-belt, throwing away things as he took them out. Wrench? No. Drill bit? No. Weed clippers? Probably wouldn't be fast enough.

"Leo, your legs!" Hazel pointed. His legs were now completely bound by the roots.

"Working on it!" He attempted to flash her a grin, but his face only crumpled. For most of his life, he had smiled and joked through the bad things that happened, but this…the fact that Piper's lifeless body was just lying there like a rag doll…

Oh gods, how was he going to break the news to Jason?

Breath mints? He tossed them.

Hazel had drawn her dagger and was savagely sawing at the tendril that encircled her waist. Her sawing was so vigorous that she actually managed to cut it, but she only managed to run a few steps. A new root burst from the ground and wrapped around her chest, this time pinning her arms to her side.

Hammer? No.

"_Be glad,_" said Gaea "_that I do not yet require your death, Hazel Levesque, or you would already be cut in two._"

Hazel squirmed. "Go and rot," she gasped out "you horrible…old…_hag_."

Gaea just laughed.

The roots were almost up to his waist.

Leo dug through the bag frantically. Bag of marshmallows? No. Jigsaw? No. Blowtorch? Why did he even _have_ a blowtorch, he was basically a human blowtorch alre…

Gods, he was stupid.

He burst into flames.

The tendrils flew away from him immediately, releasing him. Why hadn't he thought of this earlier? He was _always_ aware of the fact that he was capable of burning everything around him. Most of his nightmares were about accidentally losing control. How could he possibly _not think_ about setting fire to the things that were chaining him to the ground?

If only he'd hadn't been so _stupid_ and set the roots on fire before they'd killed Piper…

No. Hazel's voice resonated through his head. He had to stop blaming himself for everything. The roots had moved too fast; had pierced Piper's chest before Leo had even registered they were there.

After Piper's death he had been in shock. His fire-powers just _had_ to fail to turn on automatically when he was upset, the _one time_ he really needed them.

The flames around him grew higher. They would fill the room, burning Gaea's face, all the tendrils and…

No, Hazel was still in the room. He had to focus; control himself. With some concentration, he managed to bring the flames down.

He ran towards Hazel, but the tendrils around her grew tighter. She gasped.

Gaea's voice was no longer anything like amused. "_Take one more step hero. One step closer and I kill her_."

* * *

Hazel rubbed the side of her ribcage as she burst into the light of the outside world. She winced. There would be a long, snake-shaped bruise around her chest tomorrow. She didn't care though, bruises were nothing. Tears were still falling down her cheeks, and they showed no sign of stopping.

She blinked in the sunlight. Where was the ship? Frank, Jason and Nico should have been back from the Doors of Death by now.

Then again, her sense of time was skewed. She thought it might be late afternoon, but she had no watch, and had no idea which way was west.

She looked around her. The ground seemed different. Even though she'd escaped the tunnels, the earth under her feet was moving; in fact everything around her was shaking. Mortals would probably think it was an earthquake, but Hazel knew better.

Then she saw the ship. It was flying towards her, blocking out the sunlight. It was a beautifully designed warship of course, Leo had taken great care to…

Oh gods,_ Leo_…

* * *

The face in the wall smiled. "_Take three steps back._"

Leo swallowed hard and took three steps back. He was now standing right next to Piper's body, where her blood had pooled before Gaea had taken it for a sacrifice. He knelt down and gently closed her eyes.

That done, he stood and looked at Gaea. "Okey-dokey, dirt-face, here's how I see it: I can burn this whole room down in a jiffy. So why are you still telling me what to do?"

Gaea smiled, a cold, knowing smile. "_Even your fire wouldn't kill me, hero. And, while I would love to see you try, I don't think you will do that. Not when your little friend here is still in the room._"

Leo opened his mouth to speak, but Gaea continued.

"_Now here's how _I_ see it._" Leo felt a chill go down his spine. "_I need the blood of a female and male demigod to awaken. I have the blood of a female. I need the blood of a male. I will make you a deal, Leo Valdez._"

"I don't want to make any deals with you." Leo retorted.

Gaea's voice was now openly angry. "_I can kill her at any time!_" The tendril holding Hazel gave a little shake.

"Don't pay attention to anything she says, Leo!" Hazel looked frantic. Leo tore his eyes away from her.

Gaea's smile was absolutely, sickeningly, triumphant. "_I do not need her, and I cannot kill you. So here's my offer: sacrifice yourself and I let Hazel Levesque leave this room alive. _"

* * *

The second the _Argo II_ landed, Frank jumped out and ran to where she was sitting on a rock, sobbing. Jason was right behind him, and Hazel noted with some relief that Percy and Annabeth were standing on the ship.

At least something had gone right.

"Hazel." Frank put a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" She shook her head.

Jason looked marginally more messy than usual, his hair sticking up as if it had been electrified. "Where are the others?"

Hazel dug her face into Frank's shoulder and cried, and cried, and cried.

* * *

For a moment, there was absolute silence. Leo's head was swimming. There was _no way_ he could let Gaea wake up. Of all the seven, he hated her the most.

He looked at Hazel. Her golden eyes were frightened but resigned. "Don't do it Leo. I've already died once; a second time won't make much difference." She smiled sadly. "You can't let Gaea win. I'm dead anyway."

Gaea hissed, but Leo didn't hear her. He was hearing an oath spoken in an old schoolyard, an oath passed on by an old man in a rocking chair. An unspoken oath. Oaths that he hadn't realized he had made until this moment.

But he had.

"_Make your choice, my pawn. I grow impatient._"

"I will _always _be there for you" Sammy Valdez had said.

Leo looked up. "Well!" He grinned emptily. "This is ironic."

To storm or fire the world must fall.

"Leo, no!"

An oath to keep with a final breath.

He reached into his tool-belt and drew out a dagger. A simple tool; the last one he would use.

"I love you, Hazel" he said with his final breath.

* * *

They had flown over the mountains by the time Hazel had finished her story, after telling it in a mixture of sobs and deadened voice.

She didn't tell them about how Leo had sacrificed himself for her, how this was all her fault. They didn't need to know that. She just told them that Gaea had killed the others and had let her go because she had no need of her. It wasn't exactly a lie.

She had run out of tears, but she was still more miserable then she had ever been in her life. She wished Nico were here, but the others told her that he had shadow-traveled ahead to Camp Half-Blood.'

"So." Jason was trying with all his might to stay strong, Hazel could tell, but misery was plainly etched on the Roman praetor's face. "This is it then. Gaea's awake, the world ends, Leo and…" his voice broke. He put his face in his hands and turned away.

Annabeth's face, already haggard from days in Tartarus, was now grief-stricken as well. "We have to warn Camp-Halfblood."

"What good will that do?" Frank had not taken his arm from around Hazel's shoulders, for which she was grateful. "We've lost."

"No!" Hazel couldn't take it. She jumped up and paced to the side of the room. "No." she repeated. "We _haven't_ lost."

Frank looked sadder then she had ever seen him. "Hazel…"

"I'm not delusional!" she snapped. "Well, maybe a little. But we can't just give up!"

"She's right." Percy's face had become infinitely grimmer then when she'd first met him. "We've been in worse situations, after all." He tried to smile.

Annabeth gave him a look.

"Well okay, we haven't. But…"

Hazel broke in. "Just because Gaea's awake doesn't mean she can't be put back to sleep." They would think of something, she knew. Somehow, they would think of something.

Leo had died so that she could live. They had to defeat Gaea so his sacrifice would matter.

Jason raised his face from his hands. His face was wet, but his gaze was steady. "Hazel?"

She looked at Annabeth. First things first. "We need to get to Camp Half-Blood. Now."

* * *

The third-to-last thing he saw was Gaea's stony eyes fly open. "_The second sacrifice is complete._" She smiled.

The second-to-last thing he saw was the huge crack on the ceiling as the room began to shake.

The last thing he saw, through a bloody haze of pain, was Hazel, face streaked with tears, as she ran from the room like all the monsters in Tartarus were after her.

She would be okay, that was all that mattered. They would find a way to fix his last mistake.

And Leo Valdez smiled.

* * *

**I'm sorry. I find it difficult to write fluffy romance, or really, romance in general.**


End file.
